Lady Chatterly's Lover According to Spike Milligan

According to Spike Milligan

by Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan tells his version of the D.H. Lawrence classic story of the lady who embarks on an affair with the gamekeeper in order to fulfil the physical side of her marriage to a paralyzed husband.

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Classics, Romance, Literature

176 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

About the author

Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan, known as Spike, was a comedian, writer and musician. He was of Irish descent, but spent most of his childhood in India and lived most of his later life in England, moving to Australia after retirement. He is famous for his work in The Goon Show, children's poetry and a series of comical autobiographical novels about his experiences serving in the British Army in WWII. Spike Milligan suffered from bipolar disorder, which led to depression and frequent breakdowns, but he will be remembered as a comic genius. His tombstone reads 'I told you I was ill' in Gaelic.

Reviews

[Springrayn · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a sad little love story, not at all racy, and hardly anything to get one's knickers in a twist.
I guess I can say that I read it.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, another entry in the late career series of '...According to Spike Milligan' parodies, is sadly not up to the brilliant standard that Spike demonstrated in his early fiction work, nor in his autobiographies. It is obvious to anyone who is familiar with Milligan's corpus of comedic writing that by the time this book came out he was almost empty of any original ideas and he was recycling much of his past jokes and comedy tropes. His obsessive surrealism of taking passages to their literal Goonish end is shown to be worn out, run down in this piss take of Lawrence's controversial novel. At times it sputters into life, generating a few laughs here and there. However this is not prime Milligan.

Perhaps the most positive thing one can say about this book is that Milligan delivers a knee to the cruets of Lawrence's reputation. Truth be told Lawrence's prose can be turgid and faintly ridiculous and Spike aims some decent blows against these aspects of his 'inspiration'. It's when Spike does little to dilute or alter the original text of "Lady Chatterly's Lover' that he does his best work, pointing out the absurdity of the language or the imagery in the source book.

I would love to recommend this book however I can't give it more praise than its due, even though it is from Spike Milligan. I would suggest it's only going to really appeal to those who want to complete their collection of his work.

[Richard Olney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember everything about Lady Chatterley's Lover, especially how it ended and wondered whether that might detract from my enjoyment of this book, it didn't.

It seems to me that this book sticks to the plot of the original and some of the dialogue seems familiar, especially the parts when the gamekeeper speaks using his dialect, i am a fan of dialect even when i don't understand it.

The added parts are perhaps purest Milligan, lots of snappy and very funny wordplay, many recurring motifs, references to Catford, Lewisham, what might be called soldier's humour that is bawdy but touching and very human, a cast of characters who are frequently mentioned, it's not immediately clear why and recurring gag concerning a NAAFI Tea Urn which is probably my favourite.

This is one of the few books to make me giggle and suppress laughter, the description of a part of the gamekeeper as looking like a tubular map of Britain's inland waterways really stopped me in my reading to wipe away a tear.

Thank you Spike, a very very funny man, rest well.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another bit of silliness from Milligan. He takes a rather stodgy classic and gives it his own brand of British humour. There are some bits that had me snorting with laughter, but on the whole I think I read it in a state of mild amusement. I think the trouble is that it's completely full on - every line is a joke or pun or mick take of the original work - there is no let up at all so you kind of feel a bit socked in the head by it all. The comedy of repetition also gets a bit tiring after a while. But that said, I enjoyed the weekend I spent in its company.

[Les Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little too crude for me.

[Derek de Vlieger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Total nonsense!

[Bridget Wilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Funny

[Richard Jespers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michaelis must seem to the reader, at first, that he is Lady Chatterly’s lover. However, he is only practice for the lover to come, an easing into her “loverliness.” Initially, he is in himself satisfying, but then not. Lady Chatterly realizes he will not bring her even sexual satisfaction, let alone love.

Lawrence, through Connie, really lambastes industrial England. As John Edwards speaks of two political Americas, Lawrence describes, laments the two Englands, how the industrial is blotting out the agricultural, and this is set in the mid-1920s! Fitzgerald’s observation of America during the same period has a certain prescience of what is to come. More and more pollution. Lawrence’s pollution is perhaps a metaphor for a different kind of poison.

Lawrence’s lovemaking scenes are ever so erotic. Lovely. It is life itself. To write without even an allusion to sex is a kind of dishonesty. Everyone thinks about it, does it or doesn’t but wants to, ignores though one can’t really ignore yearnings that manifest themselves physically.

Sexual complexity. Mellors gives voice to his desires and how women he’s had have been of certain “types”. He seems to idealize what a woman should be, what his sexual relationship with them should be. Lawrence is plowing new ground here, and it is plenty rocky. I so admire the erotic nature of his sex/love scenes, because they are based in the particular, not glossed over with metaphor. Yet he does achieve metaphor—after or through—the particular sexual act. These scenes are NOT pornographic. They are human. They are a fine example of what I’d like to achieve in any sex scenes I write in the future.

When Lawrence moves the novel to Venice, the narrative pace slows. The drama that has been building is truncated. Why would he do this?

The novel, except for some fine “descriptions,” leaves the realm of the physical world. It all becomes a matter of certain machinations: getting the characters from here to there to finish off the novel. What if Connie had stayed and fought? It seems possible. Lawrence has limned Chatterly as such a strong rebellious woman. Why could she not—Hester Prynne style—have stayed and fought?

[Melanie Winter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this book for a women's perspectives book group at our local library in Delray. Unfortunately, we did not discuss it because a number of the ladies had contacted the facilitator and told her they did not like the book and did not want to read it. So she talked about the Scarlet Letter instead. Nobody got notice of the change but most ladies knew about the change, I believe because they know the facilitator.

I first re-read Pete's copy of this book in my early twenties. It was great to get a chance to re-read it. There is offensive language in it about Blacks, women, Jews, and class issues. I'm sure it truly was an incredible work for it's time and it seems to me to do a pretty good job of describing how a person's perspective can change over time and space (such as happened to the main female character when she went to Europe) and also about the change in feeling you can have toward people that are important to you.

The book kind of ends abruptly with a letter from the game keeper to Lady Chatterly and you never quite know what became of them--were they successful together or not? Did she have the baby? Etc., etc.

[Adrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
You go girl with your bad self! Today, the main character in this novel would be considered a woman who knows her own mind, independent. However, back in the day she was a HARLOT! A woman having an affair, Gasp! Now I do not condone cheating, not ever, grow up and hash out your issues people. You can do that nowadays. However, way back when, it was a totally different ball game. Lady Chatterly breaks that old mold as best she can. She is suffocated by societal conventions and in her own way bends those, showing a strong will and desire for happiness and fulfillment.

[Stoneme Mayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvellous, magnificent and morose are all words that do not describe this book although covers, chapters and capital letters do. I now feel that the need to read the original D H Lawrence version defunct as Spike Milligan has plagiarised all the best bits especially Mellor’s delicate white loins.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even more sex than I remembered from first reading some 40 years ago. There's a bit of storyline, too, but most interesting as a historical curiosity and for its notoriety than anything else. Glad it was short.

[Pat Hendrickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the story in general, but it had a lot of unnecessary dialogue and repetition. I understand it was a good book for the times, but some of the conversations were tiring. I think reading it out of curiosity is good, but you'll do a lot of scanning, I think.

[Leabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has its funny moments.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating intended for D. H. Lawrence's original work. Not sure why it doesn't appear on Goodreads.

[Jadin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not so racy as one would expect...more about the death of England in the face of industrialization, and how man is become unnatural, etc etc.

[Paul Kind · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing, but felt like there was a lot of depressing repetition.